Relaxed Dad Vs. Tiger Mom Style Parenting

There's been an ongoing debate between Bryan Caplan and Amy Chua over which is the better way to raise your kids. Of course it all depends on what you're optimizing for - career/earnings or happiness.

Here one commenter makes a good point about which path to choose:

How about this: Amy ChuaÂ’s method is better in raising successful kids career-wise, at the expense of emotional attachment, family warmth, etc. ItÂ’s a trade-off. If you envision your childÂ’s future life to be of economic hardship and misery, maybe itÂ’s a GOOD trade-off (as evidenced by the stricter methods of parenting on poorer societies, and also in the past when being poor really influenced your happiness).

If you already earn more than USD 25,000$ a year (which is the threshold after which income stops correlating positively with happiness), then itÂ’s probably better to be a B.Caplan-style parent. (if your goal is to maximize your childÂ’s total future happiness).

I think the answer is that simple.

Of course even Amy Chua has backed off on some of her Tiger Mom book's claims saying that parts of it were a "spoof" meant to be funny. To which Bryan Caplan jokingly has a Joe Pesci response:

"How is your book funny? Funny how? Funny like you didn't make your daughters practice three hours a day, and scream at them when they resisted? Funny like threatening to burn all your little girl's stuffed animals is funny? What kind of funny? Tell me how it's funny."

Have you ever heard a kid learning to play the violin? A cat in the microwave is nothing to it. And let me add an addendum to the things my children were never allowed to do​—​put a cat in the microwave. IÂ’m not saying it didnÂ’t happen; IÂ’m just saying they werenÂ’t allowed to do it.

...But my kids practice too, hour after hour every day. They practice being jerks. And since almost every boss IÂ’ve ever had was a jerk, this gives them a leg up. Plus thereÂ’s the cat in the microwave. That shows an inquisitive, experimental turn of mind. You can see how electronic cat-zapping could lead directly to the invention of something like Facebook.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:43 PM | Comments (1117)
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Boston, The Stanley Cup Is Yours! The thirty nine year drought is over. The curse of the bambino... well you get the picture. Old school Bruins fans, please watch the video below!

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:41 PM | Comments (114)
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Why hero to all?
Because he's beating Obama 44-39 according to Gallup (fresh off a winning poll result from Rasmussen as well).

Gallup gives us the usual, historically correct "dont read too much into this":

"Presidential preferences long before an election can give an indication of the current political environment, but their relationship to the eventual election outcome shows how much that environment can change in the months leading up to the election."

The poll of registered voters (implying, in my view, an even worse election-time result for the President since likely voters skew a few points further to the right) can be found here.

We are under 18 months away from election day, which is still an eternity-and-a-half in political cycles. However, the economic derailment now all but inevitable for Fall 2011 through early 2012 will not give the President the economic bounce Reagan and Clinton enjoyed.

With current conditions remaining stagnant, Obama currently faces a popular vote ceiling of 51.4%, and an electoral vote ceiling of 303, just 33 higher than the magical make-or-break number for re-election. Florida, North Carolina, Indiana and Nebraska's errant district are gone.

The closer to election day we move with conditions growing worse, the farther both ceilings will fall, and the more swing states drift from "possible" to "a bridge too far". If the electoral vote crosses under 270 for his internals before January 2012, he pulls a Lyndon Johnson and bows out of his re-election. You heard it here second (after Ace).

Posted by: CAC at 03:19 PM | Comments (179)
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At Hot Air:

YesterdayÂ’s vote failed for procedural reasons but they cleaned it up today and nailed down a remarkably bipartisan consensus. Eyeball the roll: 38 Democrats, 33 Republicans, and both independents voted yes, with no votes coming mainly from plains-states senators eager to keep the campaign cash flowing. When youÂ’ve got both senators from California and both senators from Oklahoma on the same side of an issue, youÂ’re working magic, my friends.

While it ends subsidies, it does nothing to end laws mandating minimum ethanol use. But it's a start. Allahpundit has more.

You think Romney will protest this bi-partisan travesty? more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 02:11 PM | Comments (106)
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Rather than leaving this is a comment, I will post my summation here.

20-30 commenters require a massive amount of babysitting my myself, my cobloggers, and the Troll Busters.

Constantly babysitting the same 20-30 fuckwits represents labor, work, time, and headaches we do not wish to continue.

I had to spend all day Saturday babysitting a thread.

I had to delete a thread today, and then babysit another one.

Behind the scenes, there was some debate over whether we could post Ladd Ehlinger, Jr.'s new political ad, because we knew the 20-30 problem commenters we have would go apeshit at the opportunity for racial jokes. We had to specifically arrange for that post to posted at a time when Andy was free to spend his off hours babysitting it.

By the way, that decision hurt Ladd's efforts, because we published it on the main page past the peak viewing hours.

But we had to do it this way. Because 20 or 30 commenters require constant babysitting and will not accept that in 2011 their old-school racial cracks are no longer cool.

The other thing we should do -- but don't -- is post a clear warning whenever a post goes up that implicates racial issues. We don't, because it would be embarrassing for the good commenters here, to have Ace of Spades HQ be known widely as the place that requires a specific caution against racism whenever a post even tangentially implicating race goes up.

The 20-30 problem commenters wind up shaming everyone else.

Posting here is a privilege. It is not a right. This is a private business, and an endeavor I have now put seven years of my life into. This is the most recent and biggest thing on my resume -- sad and pathetic, I know, but true nonetheless.

I am responsible, ultimately, for what is posted here -- including in the comments. Edit: Well, not really. I sure don't want to be responsible, and don't wish to invite such a legal responsibility. But as far as reputation, etc. -- yes, people count commenters against a site.

It is my job, too, to cultivate the sort of community where people want to join in the fun. And no matter how many times I tell them so, the same 20-30 problem commenters don't seem to understand that particularly nasty comments do not, in fact, make other people want to join in the fun.

So here is the "Charles Johnson" rule going forward.

Are you contributing as a commenter?

Or are you detracting as a commenter, forcing me to spend time I could be creating content to babysit you, or enlisting the cobloggers or Troll Busters (who, unlike me, don't even get a dime of revenue from all the hours of work they put in) to watch, delete, and redact your comments, or continue issuing to your the same warnings and advisories you have ignored the first 20 times they were issued?

The rule going forward is you are a commenter for whom the latter type of behavior predominates, you are going to be banned, and banned for life, in very short order.

Yes, we could all drop everything to ride herd on you and babysit you all day.

But this raises an intriguing question: Why the hell should we? You have been counseled, you have been warned, you have been advised. Hell, you are frequently pleaded with.

If, at this late date, you are still so disrespectful to continue violating blog policy, and so selfish to demand that other people spend hours of their day babysitting you, then you are not to be trusted with the privilege of commenting, and said privilege will be revoked.

Let me sum up:

WE.

(I).

HAVE.

BETTER.

THINGS.

TO.

DO.

THAN.

BABYSIT.

YOU.

ALL.

DAY.

LONG.

We are doing so, however, because I don't wish to squash people's commenting unnecessarily.

However, in order to avoid taking this privilege back, it is beginning to dawn on me that I, and the cobloggers, and the Troll Busters, are spending a rather outsized amount of time and energy attempting, futilely it seems, to get you to the point where you can simply be trusted, and don't require being watched.

Why should we spend such time -- on your behalf? If you can't be trusted and aren't willing to respect a warning, why bother trying to avoid the last step of simply banning you?

So let it be known, going forward: I'm tired of this particular reindeer game.

Apparently we have a fundamental disagreement: I want my wishes for my rights as property owner to be respected and treated with courtesy, rather than simply ignored and defied, and 20-30 problem commenters don't wish to respect those rights.

At some point a dispute simply must be resolved. I plan on resolving it shortly.

Here is an analogy I used:

I try to make this place sort of like a party. I know it's just a dumb blog, but I try to encourage a fun atmosphere.

There's a lot of beer in the fridge. Generally I put no limits on taking beer from the fridge.

But when I say specifically "Those beers left in the fridge are special beers, please don't take them," and then you help yourself anyway, and inform me "Fuck you, free beer," well, we seem to have a different conception of 1, conservatism, 2, respect and courtesy, and 3, property rights.

I don't understand alleged "conservatives" who will keep arguing to me with their dying breath that they have acquired, simply by commenting, some kind of quasi-ownership stake in this venture, and who will therefore challenge me on setting editorial policy and the rules of decorum.

There are few rules here. I lost advertising on the comments pages due to salty language. Rather than simply ban all salty language, I decided that, for now at least, I'd simply take in less money.

I'd continue letting people curse... despite the fact it was costing me genuine money, and a fair amount of it, too.

Did you know that? No, you probably didn't, because I haven't made an issue of it.

But check the comments pages. No ads. No revenue.

So I am in fact willing, in the spirit of creating a special community, incur some losses of income here. This blog has always had a limited revenue potential, due to the simple fact that I decided, early on, this would be a different kind of conservative blog, for the other kind of conservative.

No big conservative organizations are going to buy this blog.

Because this isn't exactly G-rated.

That was my decision. I did that. I'm not blaming anyone. That's my decision. I own that.

But there are problems, and heat, and diminishments of opportunity I am willing to undertake, and there are probems, and heat, and diminishmetns of opportunity I am not willing to undertake.

And when I specifically warn you off certain language or certain topics, that's me saying, "No, I think I've agreed to enough problems as it is, and am not willing to court further problems."

You don't have to agree with my decisions. I don't require you "parrot" anything. But I do demand your respect my right to be wrong.

Let's say I'm wrong. Am I not allowed to be wrong in my own business? Have I not earned that right?

Must I argue and babysit and ban over and over again for the same 20 or 30 people who apparently have no respect for me and also no conception of the reciprocal duties, in addition to the list of "rights" they keep telling me about, that might run from them, to me?

It's a private club. It's a private business. It's private property.

There are a legion of people who profess to be some kind of "libertarians" or something who wish to insist to me that they have full freedom of expression, which I cannot violate, and yet, it appears, I do not have the right of free association myself, or the right to set rules for my club and my property and my business as I see fit.

This is self-righteous entitlement. It's also leftist. My property does not become yours simply because it seems to you that it should.

So, rather than argue this at comment 700 in a now-defunct thread, I put it all here, so there is no mistaking:

At the end of the day, this is my reputation, my business, and my ass.

It is therefore my right to set the rules.

If you find this to be too intolerable, you are invited to go somewhere else with looser rules.

And then you can promptly begin arguing with them that you have somehow acquired an ownership stake in the business, and a voting seat on the Executive Committee, simply by posting a comment.

Exactly: Johnny, I think, wrote this:

I think the rather loose commenting rules have ended up contributing to more of the same behavior in sort of a competitive shock-the-crowd manner.

This is why I impose cautions and try to keep anyone from saying anything.

Because I know the dynamic-- everyone will try to top the last guy. It's how it always happens.

And before long, I have a clean-up situation on my hands, again.

When I caution, I have psychically seen the future, all right? Do you get this? I know, as an inevitability, Screw-Head is going to go slightly over the line, and then Mr. Hilarious will have to further, and then Dr. Jackass will go further still, and then Guy Who Doesn't Know When To Say When is going to cap it off with something terrible.

And I don't feel like watching the thread for this inevitability.

In addition, I know something else: Almost none of these people will have actually have been funny at all. They just will have done the easy and cheap, go further and further, without any wit or surprise about it.

This is what drives me insane with the cutesy-poo brigade who always wants to flirt with the line as soon as a I lay it down -- because they're creating, whether thoughtlessly or willfully, the dynamic which will inevitably lead to an ugly remark within 40 comments or less.

Some people have a good idea of when the game of I Can Top That should stop. Unfortunately, there are a raft of people who do not know when the game must end.

And yes, due to the latter type, I have to lay down blanket, no-holes rules so that the Guy Who Always Needs to Take It Way Too Far will not be encouraged to do so.

Whenever this comes up, people say, "You must have known we'd do this."

Indeed I did. Thus, the warning in the first place. Did you think I was just kidding around?

No. It's because I could see where this train was heading that I laid down the warning in the first place.

If you violate that, don't turn around and say "How could you blame us?" I can blame you because you are presumably adults and I laid down a rule of conduct at my business, which you promptly ignored.

That's how I can blame you.

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (1254)
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3 entries.

On second thought, Tim Pawlenty would like to take a swipe at Mitt Romeny.

On seizing debate opportunity re: healthcare: Me 0, Mitt 1. On doing healthcare reform the right way as governor: Me 1, Mitt 0

So, Pawlenty will take shots at Romnney on Fox News and Twitter but not while he's standing 5 feet from the guy. As the kids say, #FAIL

Dave Weigel (I know) has the definitive take.

The problem for Pawlenty is more than campaign tactics and missing chances to break out of the "oh, those guys are running too" pack. Campaigns are about sizing candidates up and trying to figure out what kind of President they would make. If you aren't willing to stand up to Mitt Romney when he's standing there, are you going to stand up to Vladimir Putin?

It's not a precise comparison but if people don't know you, all they can do is extrapolate from what they see. Yipping from a distance but not in person isn't an attractive characteristic.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney opens his mouth and promptly shoves his foot into it.

At a campaign event in Florida today, the 2012 Republican frontrunner met with a group of unemployed workers who talked about their challenges looking for jobs in the struggling economy.

After they concluded, the former Massachusetts governor suggested he should tell his own "story," according to the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny.

"I'm also unemployed," Romney replied, with a smile.

Ah, the mutli-millionaire who has devoted the last 6 years or so of his life and several million dollars of his own money to running for President doesn't have a job. See, he's just like you! Or it's funny! Or something.

Pro tip to all candidates for President (and the current holder of the office) in times of 9%+ unemployment, jokes about not having a job are never going to be winners.

Last and worst...why are Republicans in the House taking a pass on cutting more money from the budget?

"The American people have made it loud and clear that they want spending cuts and debt reduction to be WashingtonÂ’s foremost priorities," Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said, as he alone laid out 11 different amendments to the bill, designed to cut $2 billion.

By Wednesday afternoon, the House had voted on a half dozen of Broun's budget cutting plans, easily rejecting all six.

In fact, the best Broun or any other Republican could do was to muster 125 votes for one of his plans, as at times more than half of all House Republicans joined with Democrats to reject these extra budget cutting plans.

It was much like votes earlier this month for an across the board cut in the Homeland Security budget, where just 110 lawmakers voted for $4 billion in savings, as many Republicans again displayed their distaste for extra cuts.

The bill under consideration already cuts $2.6 billion from ag, food safety and nutrition programs but why not cut more? We're not going to balance the budget this way, we still need to get after so-called "entitlements" but we damn well should be cutting at every opportunity.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:48 AM | Comments (181)
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In Stephen Jay Gould's 1981 book, The Mismeasure of Man, he attacked unconscious scientific bias--in this case, of a racial variety. Gould used the work of 19th century anthropologist Samuel George Morton to make his point. Morton had collected and analyzed hundreds of skulls and drew conclusions about the relative cranial volumes of different races.

In order to determine volume, Morton measured the skulls by filling them with peppercorns--not metal balls--through the hole at their bases. He would then pour the peppercorns out and measure their volume. Gould related that Morton had skewed his research by fudging the data. He did so by taking advantage of the fact that peppercorns are irregular and can be compacted by shaking and compressed by hand (or a thumb, in this case). Gould said that Morton would shake a Negroid skull very little, and that he would shake a Caucasoid skull violently and then compress the peppercorns by pressing down hard on them with his thumb. And Morton did all this because he hated black people. Gould also said that later research performed with metal balls revealed that the skull differences were negligible.

How he arrived at such conclusions regarding Morton's behavior and motivations without, say, interviewing him was a a bit of a mystery. But it was Stephen Jay "Punctuated Equilibrium" Gould from Harvard, so we knew that his claims had to be reliable. He must have drawn his conclusions based upon an overwhelming amount of contradictory evidence, because not even The Amazing Kreskin can read minds like that--especially of the deceased.

It's not a mystery anymore. Gould never measured the skulls.

Another study has been published that refutes Gould's conclusions, and in this study, they actually went back and measured the skulls in question. From Discover:

The team went back and measure MortonÂ’s skulls themselves. What they found was that very few of his measurements were off, and the errors he had made actually contradicted his hypothesis that Caucasian brains would be larger. Nature NewsÂ’ Great Beyond provides the teamÂ’s full list of mistakes Gould made in his analysis.

So Gould made up the whole thing.

Gould himself let political bias influence his scientific conclusions. He set out to demonstrate everybody is the same, that any differences are negligible, and that anyone who concluded there are meaningful differences in brain size were not only wrong but also stupid, depraved, evil, and racist, etc. And he did this to the exclusion of any opposing data or conclusion. He hurt a lot of people in the process. Perhaps he felt he had enough scientific credibility to burn in order to make himself into a hero--instead of a scientist. But I wouldn't want to start mind reading.

This whole Gould affair bothered me, because I saw a PBS show in the early 80's where he persuasively demonstrated how these evil scientists were racist and stupid. I was totally convinced. I saw him with an ugly grin, gesturing with his thumb, showing how Morton had compressed peppercorns into the base of Caucasian skulls. I didn't find out until the late 90's that he was wrong, and that he shat upon a lot of people in the process. (This wasn't the first study to demolish Gould's findings, only the latest.)

So, yes, it bothered me. I had been made to feel angry at some scientist I had never read and disgust at people for the prejudices they can hold. And Gould did all this just to demonstrate the superiority of his politics. It is another great example of how ostensibly smart people can be terribly stupid. These people--I call them "perception morons" because of the subjective filtering of perceptual information--always seem to be lead astray by their politics. Think of the brilliant, yet perennially stupid, Noam Chomsky.

John Derbyshire calls Gould "an unscrupulous propagandist." And, indeed, Gould had some interesting views about science:

Gould . . . believed that "the purpose of critical science is to promote socialism, which is the only just form of government", and they saw sociobiology, erroneously as it turns out, as an inherently right-wing, individualistic philosophy. They accused Wilson of sending human nature back to the concentration camps.

So science was just a means to political end for Stephen Jay Gould. As Ace says, projection is not just a river in Egypt. In one respect, science was a way for Gould to project his own ugly, unacknowledged, unconscious thoughts and emotions--his biases--upon other people. So, ironically, Gould's Mismeasure of Man is still a very useful work for examining unconscious scientific bias. But not in the way originally intended.

More at John Hawks Weblog.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 08:51 AM | Comments (372)
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In the entire run of the Weinergate drama, the fact that this video wasn't posted baffles me. So with the congressional creeper resigning, better now than never. The Lonely Island introduces us to a dance I feel many of you morons are already familiar with. For a version WITHOUT the audience laughing themselves silly click here.
Enjoy, and Open Thread.

Posted by: CAC at 08:42 AM | Comments (96)
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No further Weiner stories will be posted here, same as no Michelle Obama stories will be posted here. Because I cannot trust commenters with them.

The Weiner story is entirely off-limits now. If you don't like it, start your own blog.

I have undertaken some risks in carrying this story forward. I have evaluated those risks and decided, in many circumstances, the need to develop the story outweighed those risks.

When I inform you that I am not willing to also undertake the risks you so thoughtfully volunteer me for, and you ignore me, that means the entire topic must now be embargoed.

I am sick of having to babysit threads. I lay down a simple advisory -- and note that Ginger Lee is lawyering up and looking to start suing -- and people say to me, "Fuck you. Deal with it."

Well no. Fuck you. You deal with it.

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (888)
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When even a candy ass RINO like me was impressed by Michele Bachmann it was pretty clear she was going to get a nice bounce out of Monday night's, er, thing.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary Voters, taken following the candidatesÂ’ Monday night debate, shows Romney earning 33% support, with Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a surprise second at 19%. Georgia businessman Herman Cain is in third place with 10% of the vote.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich picks up nine percent (9%) support, followed by Texas Congressman Ron Paul with seven percent (7%), ex-Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty at six percent (6%) and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum also earning six percent (6%). Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who did not participate in the debate but is expected to announce his candidacy on Tuesday, gets two percent (2%) of the vote. Eight percent (8%) prefer some other candidate.

Romney and Bachmann are tied among primary voters who say they are Tea Party members, with 26% support each. Romney holds a 36% to 16% lead over the congresswoman among non-members. Most primary voters regard all the candidates with the exception of Huntsman as conservative, but Bachmann is seen as the most conservative.

I'm surprised to see Romney doing so well with self-identified tea party voters. I imagine that's because a lot of folks calling themselves tea party voters in this survey don't fit the traditional profile (in other words, you'd roll their eyes when you hear them call themselves that based on some of their other positions). Perhaps these voters are more pragmatic than the MFM likes to give them credit for and see Romeny as the best chance to beat Obama. Either way, it's surprising to see Mr. RomneyCare polling well with tea partiers.

As for last week's flavor to the week, Tim Pawlenty, it seems a lot of the good work he did with his roll out was undone by his second straight lackluster "debate" performance.

Yes, it's early and there maybe other chances for him to stand out but he clearly was not able to make himself "Plan B" for voters not sold on Mitt. In fact, he's getting passed by other candidates for that title. Not taking on Mitt directly Monday was a huge mistake. There aren't going to be that many chances for him to go toe-to-tow with Mitt in person and he let one pass.

For Pawlenty to win the nomination, he needs to be fighting with Romney, not with the rest of the field to see who gets to be the one to take on Mitt. If Rick Perry enters the race as expected, that's another candidate Pawlenty will have to deal with. He really needs to establish himself firmly as "the other guy" soon or the train may pass him by.

Meanwhile....Mitt just chugs along above it all.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:28 AM | Comments (217)
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